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croft, n.1

SECOND EDITION 1989

(krft)  Also 5 ? crofe, croofte, 5-6 crofft(e, 5-7 crofte, 6-9 Sc. craft. [OE. croft enclosed field, app. corresp. to Du. kroft, krocht prominent rocky height, high and dry land, field on the downs. Ulterior etymology unknown.] 

    1. A piece of enclosed ground, used for tillage or pasture: in most localities a small piece of arable land adjacent to a house.
  Ray, N.C. Words 133, notices that in the north it implied adjacency to a dwelling-house, but that this attribute did not attach to its general English use. Cf. the Cornish use in quot. 1880, and the quot. from Milton 1634, which suggests the Dutch sense.

969 Cod. Dipl. III. 37 (Bosw.) Æt æs croftes heafod. c1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 478/558 Ase he stod in is crofte. 1362 LANGL. P. Pl. A. VII. 35 For ei [birds] comen into my croft and croppen my whete. 1483 Cath. Angl. 83 Crofte, confinium. 1486 Bk. St. Albans Fvb, Who that..closith his croofte wyth cheritrees. 1523 FITZHERBERT Surv. ib, A curtylage is a lytell croft or court..to put in catell for a tyme. 1604 in Eng. Gilds (1870) 437 All ould tenants shall haue a croft and a medow. 1634 MILTON Comus 531 Tending my flocks hard by i' th' hilly Crofts That brow this bottom glade. 1718 F. HUTCHINSON Witchcraft XV. (1720) 268 In a croft or close adjoining to his Father's House. 1794 WORDSW. Guilt & Sorrow xxiv, A little croft we owneda plot of corn. 1818 SCOTT Hrt. Midl. viii, To occupy her husband's cottage, and cultivate..a croft of land adjacent. 1842 TENNYSON Two Voices, Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew. 1864 Glasgow Herald 16 May, The croft is now generally the best land of the farm, and every farm almost has its croft. 1880 W. Cornwall Gloss., Croft, an enclosed common not yet cultivated.

    b. fig.

c1460 Towneley Myst. 314 Com to my crofte Alle ye..Welcom to my see. 1588 A. KING tr. Canisius' Catech. 184b, Quhilk proues..vs to be as fruictful tries in the croft or feild of the kirk. 1636 JAMES Iter Lanc. (1845) 360 Happie they whose dwelling's in Christs crofte.

    c. toft and croft: a messuage with land attached: see TOFT¹.

    2. A small agricultural holding worked by a peasant tenant; esp. that of a CROFTER in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (see quot. 1851).

1842 ALISON Hist. Europe XIV. xcv. §53 It has covered the country, not with Tuscan freeholds, but with Irish crofts. 1851 2nd Rep. Relief of Destit. Highlands 1850, 42 The crofting system was first introduced, by the arable part of the small farms previously held in common being divided among the joint tenants in separate crofts, the pasture remaining in common. 1883 A. R. WALLACE Land National. in Macm. Mag., The Highland crofters are confined to miserably small holdingsthe largest croft in Skye..being seven acres. 1884 Spectator 17 May 642 In some parts of North Uist there are no crofts in individual ownership.

    3. attrib. and Comb., as croft-bleaching, bleaching by exposure on the grass; croft-land, ‘the land of superior quality, which, according to the old mode of farming, was still cropped’ (Jam.).

1791 Statist. Acc. Dumfr. I. 181 (Jam.) Lime and manure were unknown, except on a few acres of what is called croft~land, which was never out of crop. 1796 Trans. Soc. Enc. Arts XIV. 154 Waste land, consisting of marsh, croft, and sandy soils. 1875 URE Dict. Arts I. 366 After being altered by the action of chlorine, or by insolation or croft-bleaching. 1878 Cumbrld. Gloss., Croft land, a range of fields near the house, of equally good quality with the croft.

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